La Caņada, Ávila, Spain, the J87 observatory

The observatory was built around a tall, 2.5 m high pier, the basement floor is a square about 3.20m on each side and serves as a control room. On the first floor, circular, is the 12" LX200 telescope CCD equiped all enclosed by a fiberglass dome.

In this picture, the opened observatory cools to ambient temperature on a sunset, just before observations. At the same time, the CCD camera is cooling down to -30 C below ambient.

The pier foundation is a concrete cube 1.5m on the side.

A view of the telescope, on the right the CCD, an SBIG ST9 cooled camera

Two views of the observatory, on a clear winter Sun rise (left) and a more uptodate photo (December 2006) under the snow.

The control room

The Meade LX200 12" telescope and the observation window shutters, these are moved by two Firgelli linear actuators controlled from the observatory's PC